


Lone Star

by karis_matic



Category: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Movies)
Genre: F/M, general fluff and wistful type stuff, hopefully heartwrenching, maybe just shitty, uhhmm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-25
Updated: 2017-05-25
Packaged: 2018-11-04 16:59:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10995129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karis_matic/pseuds/karis_matic
Summary: When the darkness comes, the stars will come out. But she is still afraid of the dark, and he does not think he will ever find the stars.





	Lone Star

The summer rain had not taken away the heat; in fact, it had only worsened it by adding the damp, stickiness of humidity. Only the coolness of night as the sun slowly sank behind the flatlands finally gave a rest to the miserable weather, and the evening wind came as a blessed relief to the tenants. But there was something afoot – something in the air, you could say. Something that gave an added chill.

Closing her diner for the night, Vanita Brock tried to ignore it. But she could not, and neither could anyone else, so it seemed. The business was slower than what was the normal rush to catch one last meal before heading home for the night, and the few souls who came were in a hurry to leave. No one wanted to be out alone, in the dark.

That, she understood.

Floyd Robbins, a regular, stood up from his stool at the bar and stretched slowly, taking in the weather outside. “There’s another storm a’ comin’,” he told her. “It’s a smart move you’re making, closin’ up shop earlier.”

She nodded, wiping down the bar. She felt weary and eerily empty. But she knew that like the storm, the feeling would pass, and when the sun came again the next morning, she would wonder why she ever felt the need to be filled. There was something about the shroud of the night that always left her anxious. She didn’t tell him that the storm was not the only reason she wanted to hide away.

“There’s no one here – I don’t see the need to stay away from home if everyone else isn’t,” she responded. There are clouds forming just ahead; she can see the way they’re already blocking the sky. A tell-tale sign of the very storm Floyd was predicting.

“Maybe if it does rain some tonight we’ll have a cooler morning,” she said. Floyd just grunted shrugged, taking down the last bit of beer in his mug before setting it down on the bar for her to take.

“Drive safe tonight,” was all he replied, dropping his money on the bar. He nodded to the customer behind him, a lone crippled boy who had also found the darkening sky fascinating. “I better get him home soon or his mother will have my head.”

Vanita grinned. “Can’t take something you don’t own,” she joked, and dodged the balled up napkin he tossed at her. He just clicked his tongue in mock disappointment, shaking his head and heading over to his son.

He tapped the boy’s shoulder lightly to catch his attention. “Come, Skippy, Momma’s waitin’ for the both of us,” he said, signing each word for his son to understand. The boy began to wave his hands frantically and then point outside, where a small flash of lightning struck across the sky.

“I know – she don’t like those storms. That’s why we gotta go, kid,” Floyd responded, still signing rapidly. Vanita watched them, trying to catch a word she could recognize.

She hadn’t been interested in learning sign language before; she hadn’t thought she’d ever need it. But then the Robbins had their first and only son, and he was mute and crippled from birth. No one in town had ever had a mute child before, and no one was quite educated enough to understand how to begin to have one. But the Robbins had gone over to the next town where they could take classes, and Hamilton Robbins – nicknamed Skippy for his canter due to his crippled leg – was soon just as average of a sight as the lightning that cracked through the clouds once again.

“You both get home safe,” she called out, and to Skippy, she signed the only words she knew – _be careful_. Skippy waved his hands back in what she gathered as a _good night_. Floyd just waved behind him as he and his son raced to their car from the diner’s front door, trying their best not to get wet by the sudden resurgence of rain.

Vanita gave the diner one last clean sweep before taking her umbrella out from behind the bar and heading out the door, locking it behind her as she made her way to her own car. She jumped inside, shaking off her umbrella and closing it up before shutting her door and starting the engine, shivering and waiting for the heat to cut on inside – something she found amusing.

“Wanting the heat on in the middle of a Texan summer – I can’t think of anything more strange,” she observed aloud to no one in particular. The heat slowly began to fill the car, and she held her hands out in front of the ventilation to dry out her fingers. Then she began the short drive home.

It was such a small town that she lived in. Almost not worth the drive, except the rain was falling ever steadily. A small town with small ideas, but she had watched it begin to grow. When she had been younger, people were different. More exclusive. She thought of Hamilton again, and thought about how much crueler his world might have been, were he born in an earlier time. In her time.

She didn’t like thinking much about her time. Being a woman of nearly thirty years, she’d like to think she’d moved on from the past. But, as any good person knows, that notion is near impossible. She faced that fact tonight, listlessly switching her radio station over and over again, never quite finding something she wanted to listen to on her short drive home. She was there in front of her humble little shack before she had settled on any station.

She didn’t get out of the car right away, and it wasn’t just because of the rain. She had an umbrella, just behind her seat. She could get it if she wanted to. But peering out into the darkness, with only the heavy rain barely visible, she didn’t quite feel safe, not yet. She let the car run and checked to make sure her doors were locked, and checked again.

Her gun was in the glovebox if she needed it. But there were things that even gunshot bullets, faster than lightning, could not stop. She sighed and turned the radio off, frustrated even though she knew that frustration would not give her what she was looking for. She didn’t rightly know if anything ever could.

After what seemed like lifetimes, alone and facing death, the rain was merciful and slowed down enough so that she felt comfortable enough to make a dash from her car to her house, keys already in hand and ready to slide into the lock. Her shoes squelched against the muddy path to her front porch. She couldn’t swing the front gate open fast enough before stealthily and quickly tip-toeing up the porch steps and unlocking her front door, letting it and the screen slam behind her. She locked and bolted it behind her, her heart still pounding away like the stallions after a betting race.

She stood there for a moment, in disbelief with herself. Ten years, almost, and even after all this time, she could not get over somethings. She still dreamed of him, of dark, bottomless eyes. A well that would hold nothing at the bottom. She always woke with a loud whirring in the back of her mind, and a faint and faraway scream echoing in her mind that she knew was hers.

She had changed so much since then. She never stepped foot into her old radio station when she made it back to her town, alive but dead in so many ways. She still hadn’t, and with no one interested in running it, it became abandoned, sad and downcast, with dark, soulless windows. She took up a diner job, while learning how to fix cars and build houses and astronomy. She began to learn the ukulele, and looked into her family history, and read up on Filipino culture when she discovered her birth parents had traveled to the states from the Philippines at young ages, just trying to start a new life of their own. She learned how to cook some of their foods, like _adobo_ or _halo-halo_ , and began an attempt at their primary language of Tagalog. She only knew _hello_ and some other nouns, but she kept at it. She kept at all of it. Anything to gain a new sense of identity that was still herself.

She put a pot on her stove and lit it up, debating with herself if she’d like coffee or tea more, and then settled on tea. She did not need any added difficulty in falling asleep.

Her house was small, but it was functional and original, and that was what she wanted and needed. Just a small sitting room when you walked in, and the kitchen to the side, with only a sitting counter between them, and a bathroom, just behind them. There was enough space for a guest or two to sit, and the couch could be pulled out if anyone needed to spend the night, although she was never in a position where she wanted anyone to be there that long. She didn’t trust anyone after dark much these days.

Ten years. She sighed, wiped away forming tears, and poured the steaming water into her mug before looking through her selection of teas and choosing on to steep, swiping a spoon and some honey to take with her to her room.

Next to the bathroom were the stairs, which she could pull down by a string. She climbed up them into her bedroom, closing the steps behind her and tucking the cord up so that it would not hang down below. It wasn’t a guarantee that no one would think to look up, but the she’d designed it so that it was well hidden. The ceiling patter was all indented squares and lines to make an eccentric looking, but necessary, pattern.

Her bedroom was her sanctuary. All mattress and pillows and blankets, with lights crudely strung and old photographs of when her life was put-together hung around the walls, with built in shelves and books and old maps and dictionaries. Sometimes, when she needed to escape anyone, she would stay there the entirety of the day, just reading or practicing music or trying her hand at watercolor. Anything to distract her mind from darker thoughts.

But her favorite corner of her favorite room was where she kept her telescope. It had taken her years to save up and get one, but it was still the best purchase she had made. With her book of constellations next to her, she would look into the sky and connect each of the twinkling dots that were so far away, memorizing each of them and trying to learn to love the dark again. These moments were the closest she’d ever had to a therapy session, and they were the only ones she ever wanted.

Tonight, there had been rain, but she still made for the telescope now, opening the window and adjusting the settings to see if there was anything she could spot out in the murky, clouded sky. Next to her, the large book of constellations lay open, still on the page where she’d left it just last night.

She set her tea mug down, the honey forgotten, as she peered into the telescope and searched for something. For anything. A sliver of light, a sense of something beyond all of the darkness. Some kind of hope. But the clouds seemed thick and unrelenting, and she could see nothing. Still, she kept looking, and she kept waiting.

She didn’t know why it meant so much, to see a star or two. She hadn’t told anyone about it – not that she talked much to anyone about anything. The most she spoke was to Floyd, and it was mostly to check up on Hamilton and his wife Glorianne. She never talked much about herself, and no one ever really asked. She was sure they talked about her when she was not there; everyone in town talked about everyone in town. Some things never changed about the small town dynamic.

It was fine by her. She didn’t want to talk about it much anyways. She didn’t know if she’d ever have the right words to talk about it.

A sudden light caught her attention. In the corner of the telescope, she caught a glimpse of the clouds parting, and she could see it. Polaris, in all of his glory, had fought through that scummy darkness and broke through the clouds, and she watched in, her heart rising with anticipation. The North Star was one she always loved to see, because it was the one that always brought you home, no matter how lost you could be. With Polaris, there was always hope.

She stayed there, on her knees, perfectly still, eye on Polaris, until it disappeared again, the darkness veiling his light as if he’d never been there. But she had seen it, and that was enough. She sat back, feeling strangely sad and delighted at the same time. She had seen what she needed to see, tonight more so than usual. She was comforted in that moment. Satisfied, she sat back and nudged her hand against her mug, reminding her she had a drink and still some time before she had to force herself sleep.

She stirred the honey into her mug in slow movements, still lost in thought. She closed the window again, almost wistful, and locked it, then turned to look at her wall of photos. In it, she could see her adoptive parents, her old school house, her friend throughout most of her life, Bessie Higgins. Old memories. The first time she’d opened the radio station, buying her first record player (which she still had and used, and would probably use again tonight, just to ease her mind into sleep).

One photo stood out, alone but not lonely. It was the first picture she and L.G. had taken together. He was wearing an awful crop top with shorts, and she was awkward and grimy from being cooped up inside the station with a broken air conditioner, but they were smiling, and they were happy, and he had been alive.

She crawled forward to it, reaching out her fingers to touch it gingerly. He had been her closest and dearest friend since she’d lost Bessie, and now she’d lost him too. She hadn’t had much time for friends since she’d lost him. There was no one who could get near her now, she felt. Not after what she’d been through. The worst part of surviving anything grand and terrible was that everyone wanted to talk as if you were a celebrity, but no one really wanted to be a companion.

A friend was someone she could use, but it didn’t seem she had that luxury option. She opted for her books and her music and the stars instead. They were enough.

She gave her photographs one last look before sipping her tea in silence, calf-high socked feet rubbing against one another. She could hear lightning again in the distance, but it wasn’t quite as daunting of a sound now as it had been before. She liked to think it at least. If there was one thing she still needed to work on, it was how to be brave. She hadn’t been brave once before, and she thought about it sometimes, wondering how things would have been different. If things _could_ have been different. She knew that there was no point to going back to the _would have, could have, should have_ , but she did all the same, until her tea had been drank and it was clear that she would have yet another fitful night. She turned off the lights and rolled around in her bed until she was completely blanketed and pillowed in, as safe as she could be.

She tossed and turned in her bed, unaware that only a few miles away, out in an old abandoned farmhouse, a man with the reputation of a monster slipped away from his family while they drank and pissed and laughed at the same table, snuck out to the emptied slaughterhouse, and sat against its tinned, stained, and seemingly unsalvageable walls, looking up at the same sky and clutching a left-behind handkerchief, looking for the same thing.

Polaris, a Lone Star. Any sign of hope that even shrouded by the thickest of darkness, light could still be found, somewhere, hidden behind the clouds.

**Author's Note:**

> This does not mean I'm quitting In the End. Just that I am also starting something new, that I hope you will enjoy just as much. Please, as always, leave comments and critiques. I love all of you.


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